9/6 40-Year Old Virgin-- totally funny, and very different. Go see it!
\_ It could have been modeled after some unnamed sodalites.
\_ It is hilarious. I also recommend it. Question. What does singing
"The Age of Aquarius" have anything to do with getting laid?
My history of the hippy era is pretty bad. Please explain, thx.
\_ It was a poke in the eye to the boomers. That song is their
anthem. That is how I read it, anyway.
\_ Interesting. What year was the zenith of the hippy era?
\_ Depends who you ask. The zenith of its visibility and
influence on the wider culture was probably Woodstock
in 1969. If you ask those who considered themselves the
"true hippies," it was probably the early '60s era in
San Francisco - Diggers, Merry Pranksters, etc...by the
time the "Summer of Love" happened, most of the "true
hippies" felt the whole thing had gone to shit and just
become an excuse to get high and fuck.
-- had hippy parents
\_ lye, did your parents smoke pot? Are they still
liberal or have they become a lot more conservative?
\_ Clearly you don't know me at all if you're asking
what happened to my parents. I'd rather not go into
it on the motd. You can email me if you're really
interested. --lye
\_ Isn't that it was always about? In any case, its
Zenith as a cultural movement was probably '68
"Summer of Love" or soon thereafter.
\_ I've seen what people looked like (especially hippies)
in the 60s ... I'd probably have to be high to fuck
anyone back then.
\_ I dunno. Gogo boots and minidresses are pretty rad.
It's the 70s that make me wanna hurl. Of course,
the above isn't 'hippy' attire.

9/3 Bush Nominates Roberts for Chief Justice
Hey man, didn't I say this was coming ...
"The main point is that Roberts could be the next Rehnquist, and this
could last for decades."
\- i did suggest on the wall 1. bush will likely nominate somebody
"you have never heard of" [unless you are a Groupie of
somebody "you have never heard of" [unless you are an Groupie of
the Federal Judiciary] 2. ROBERTS was being set up to be Chief
[over Scalia] although when the possibility existed to ask OCONNOR
to stay on as acting CJ and then elevate ROBERTS, i thought he
might go with that plan [I believe no extra hearing needed to
make OCONNOR acting CJ, and that would have been a breeze]. THOMAS'
tribute comments are leem: "I am sad and I miss him. He was good.
Pray." [ok maybe there was more to it?]
make OCONNOR acting CJ, and that would have been a breeze]. It's
interesting to note how leem THOMAS tribute is: "I was sad and I
miss him. He was good. Pray." [ok maybe there was more to it?]
See: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/04/rehnquist.reaction/index.html
I guess this gives STEVENS license to make his appointment a
"life setence" too. Yeah. --psb

9/3 Talking POINTS on Fox, towards the end of the talk on "The lesson
to be learned from Hurricane Katrina" says that if you want something
done, you do it yourself. You can't rely on the government for
anything, you must rely on yourself. Conservatism #1! Republican #1!!!
\_ Weird, I thought law and order was the one thing conservatives
think government is good for.
\_ Weird, I thought the one thing conservatives and libertarians
thought was a valid function of government was law and order.
\_ Conservatives believe in, first and foremost, *self-reliance*,
the "take matters with your own hands" attitude.
\_ oh, man, things were so much better when the states all
printed their own money.
\_ So you're saying that each state and local government
should invest billions of dollars in their own military
and civil infrastructure to defend themselves and deal
with catastrophic terrorist acts or natural disasters?
That sure makes a lot of sense economically. Why create
a single resource that can be shared amongst the entire
nation when you can just reinvent the wheel at the state
and local levels? Because we all need to be "self-reliant"
\_ I'm not saying that. It's what many Republicans believe.
\_ really? got a URL for any republican saying that
each state and local government should spend billions
of state/local dollars for their own military and
civil infrastructure to defend themselves and deal
with catastrophic terrorist acts and natural
disasters? oh. no. you don't. you just made that
up. welcome to the motd.
\_ Republicans are defending the federal government
and the president while blaming state and local
authorities for the NOLA fiasco. If you're
saying that it means that either (A) the state
did not utilize all the resources it had in
an effective manner or (B) the state simply
did not have the resources to handle the
disaster in the first place. But I think it's
clear from the scale of the disaster that the
only way to deal with this disaster is to have
an emergency response infrastructure that is well
beyond the scale and budget of any state like
LA.
\_ The world is not that black and white. Local and
state authorities have responsibilities that they
shirked. They didn't even approach a minimal
\_ You don't have any evidence of this other than
the rantings of right wing blogs. Do you still
believe the governor didn't declare a state of
emergency?
\_ How many school buses were left sitting
unused? What exactly was the evacuation
plan and did anyone even try to follow it?
I don't read *any* blogs, thanks for trying.
\_ So your evacuation plan would have been
to ferry 100,000 on these school buses
to be driven by all these school bus
drivers who would rather take care of
their own family and problems than to
drive a bunch of strangers around on
an already overcrowded I-10?
\_ nice way to ignore the rest. but yes
if you had read the plan you'd know
that the school buses they left to rot
were *part* of the plan to evac those
who couldn't get out on their own.
look, i'm sorry if the facts are
getting in the way of your agenda but
the fact remains that the locals have
responsibilities and failed. here,
let me save you the trouble of going
on, "gwb is evil, HALIBURTON!, oil,
Iraq, cheney is evil, scalia is evil,
dick morris is evil, HALIBURTON!, oil,
save the spotted owl, christians are
evil!". did i miss anything?
\_ I've never said anything in the
last 5 lines you wrote there but
nice of you to make assumptions
like that. I do think GWB is
pretty inept. What was the *full*
plan? I think the mayor calling
for a mandatory evacuation and
the governer requesting a state
of emergency is part of the plan.
I think the federal government
not acting on the request is
pretty criminal. If a state
governer requests resources for
evacuation and you don't act on
it that places the blame on
the federal government, not
state and local.
level of reasonable response or use the resources
they had in place prior to the event to prevent
a lot of the hardship we've seen in the last week.
Yes, of course the federal response could have
been better as the President already stated. The
federal response was slow and somewhat inept. The
state/local response borders on criminal. With
authority comes responsibility, something the
locals didn't understand and the people suffered
for it. It's all fun n games being Governor or
Mayor until people start drowning, starving, and
dying of dehydration. Then you just blame the
feds and start your re-election campaign early.
\_ How is the state and local response
"criminal"? The state and local govt have
limited resources. The federal govt has
much greater resources. If you exhaust your
state and local resources to capacity then
you've done everything you can. But if you're
a federal government with billions of dollars
at its disposal and you've done jack shit
at your disposal and you've done jack shit
then that's criminal
\_ see above.
\_ I thought that was more of a Libertarian plank....
\_ I think their definition of "self-reliance" meant something
like "give tax break to big business" and "relax
pollution standard so mercury is on everyone's dinner
plate."
like "give tax break to big business" and "relax pollution
standard so mercury is on everyone's dinner plate."

9/5 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9142893
Hey pot smoking LibUrals, does this news make you happy?
\_ Well, seeing as this is likely a harbinger of difficult economic
times, why would it? Does it make you want to cry Mr. Bible-
thumping Neo-Con?
\_ Yes, I am always happy when economic reality sets in.
\_ I sorta think pot smoking liberals would be happy solely because
they are pot smoking. =D -mrauser
\_ Uhhhh whaaaaaaat ... duuuuuuuuude you said "pot"
\_ It makes me very unhappy that lots of American workers will lose
their jobs due to the usual braindead management obsessed with
the next big SUV and unable to compete in the ordinary passenger
car market.

9/5 How is Katrina going to affect the housing market? I'd like to hear
opinions from both sides. Thanks.
\_ Just a wild guess, but I think you can probably get something
in underwater New Orleas pretty cheap now.
\_ Answer unclear. Try again later.
\_ Sometime last week, houses and office space in Baton Rogue were
being snatched up by speculators.

9/5 Say you're really old and you're going to die in 10 years. You don't
care about your credit rating. Isn't it possible that you borrow a
big sum from the bank and then declare bankrupcy later on? Or
don't even bother with it since you're going to die?
\_ If you die any debts are paid out of your estate, so anyone
who lent money to you would get it back providing you didn't
just waste it. And I doubt they would lend to the elderly who
didn't have money to really cover the loan. -mrauser
\- a think a better scenario is if you have a terminal disease
or are contemplating leaving the country ... in the leave
the country case, after liquidating assets, i wonder if you
can avoid your last tax bill. that could be like a million
dollars on cap gains.
\_ Owing the gubmint a million bucks would make it difficult
and dangerous to visit the States afterwards. Obviously this
would not be a concern for the terminally ill. I do know
people with large amounts of untaxed and unknown to the US
foreign investments. They can only spend the money outside the
country and actually live somewhat shabbily (relative to
their total available means) in the US.
\_ It worked for Marc Rich. -John
\- well i mean a scenario like an immigrant from china or
india sells their million dollar real estate and stock
portfolio and moves back home and happily settles there.
\_ I assumed that those Chinese or Indian immigrants who
might escape with the tax-free millions might still want
to visit the US later or to send their kids to college
here. The US is quite a pleasant place to live or just
to visit, and it will take a bit of money to compensate
for the permanent inability to enter the US.
\_ The person would need to avoid investing with US based
financial institutions or those who share banking treaties
with the US. Frozen assets suck.

9/5 "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay
in Texas. Everybody is so overhwlemed by the hospitality. And so many
of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway
so this (chuckle)--this is working very well for them."
-Barbara Bush
\_ Now we see where W learned his endearing "chuckle at inappropriate
moments" technique.
\_ FYI http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050906/cm_thenation/120080

9/5 I patronized a Walmart for the first time, and it was a spectacular
shopping experience. The people there were incredibly helpful, even
after it became obvious that I would not be buying from them. My wife
so appreciated their helpfulness that she kept asking me if there was
some way to tip them or otherwise pay them for their service. Two
big thumbs up on Walmart from my wife and I.
\_ No DUH!!! They are first and foremost a business. They train
employees to be nice to everyone, and even teach them how to
talk to liberals in such a way that even liberals will start to
shop at Walmart. I have no problem with the way front-end clerks
treat the people. It is the back-end of Walmart that is fucked up.
\_ I was treated much worse at the Costco a block away, where
the employee told me to fuck off, though he did do it politely.
The Walmart employees (I was helped by 3 of them) were helpful
even after it was obvious that I would not be buying from
them. In fact, that visit to Walmart was possibly the best
shopping experience I've ever had. The only other comparable
service experience was when the concierge at my Paris hotel
(the Hotel de Crillon, also highly recommended) got me same-day
tapes of the World Series and delivered hot dogs room service
(and I had to pay for the hot dogs). -op
\- Was the concierge hot?
\- g'vitch: boy i sure wouldnt have predicted CRILLON to come up
in a WALMART thread. did you have the SUPER CALVADOS? (at the
Hotel Crillon, not W'mart). --bibendum
in a WALMART thread. did you have the super CALVADOS? at the H
otel Crillon, not W'mart).
\_ KGV > Crillon :-) -John
\_ it has been my experience the merchandise at walmart is
not very high quality but i have weird shopping needs - danh
\- Is Walmart different from Target? I thought
target had some reasonably priced minor appliances.
I think I bought a peeler or an iron or something
like that there. Costco is sort of horrifying. --psb
\_ it's definitely bad to have your beefcake boytoys breaking
out of their cheap handcuffs.
\_ I was in one near Sacramento for the first (and last) time last
year. It was like some twisted circle of hell; I kept expecting
Mr. Kurtz to pop out of the bushes gasping "the horror, the
horror". Full of white & black trash, massively overweight people
including women in stained stirrup pants with screaming children
and carts full of horrible fatty starchy food. Broken toys and
torn cheap household articles / clothing everywhere; my girlfriend
came up to me with this horrified look on her face after finding
the size 38 dresses next to the family-sized tubs of candy. Also
the Marines recruiters and the morbidly obese people out front
selling brand-knockoff jesus t-shirts out front and the staff
resembling badly groomed zombies stumbling around wild-eyed sort
of complemented the general atmosphere. Shudder. -John
\- You need to go to the Walmart in Hillsborough.
\- You need to go to the Walmart in Hillborough.
\_ A couple of years ago i went into the Walmart in Cancun, and
except that all the prices were in pesos, and the electronics
section still sold NES games, the place looked the same as many
of the Walmarts I've seen in the San Joaquin Valley